JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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jeancolmar
If anyone wants me to, I can deconstruct this article line by line. But for now I'll just say it: This is a string of unsupported tentative statements (often qualified as such) to prove an Iran-North Korean conspiracy. This is Bush-vintage crud and should be dismissed as such.
Iran has one problem that North Korea does not have: a trigger-happy Israel ready to bomb it into oblivion. This is besides the fact that Islamic Iran has no real interests in dealing with North Korea, a secular Communist state.
Chang writes: "An international system that cannot defend its most fundamental interest against one of its weakest members cannot last." I say: rubbish. If anything brings down the international system it will be the Bernie Madoffs, not the Kim Jong Ils.
Has it occurred to anyone that North Korea's poverty is its greatest defense? Being poor it has nothing to lose. When you reach rock bottom a miracle happens: you realize you can still live and even thrive.
Anyway, this fizzled missile launch has caused a lot of unnecessary hysteria. Even Obama's usually calm voice got shrill when talking about this. Well now it is over. Nothing awful has happened. There is not even a North Korean musical satellite orbiting the Earth in chorus with all the American and other spy satellites. It will be years before the North Koreans can crank up another launch of this kind.
If you are inspired to be hysterical after the fact and after reading this article, consider this: If by some weird chance a piece of space debris falls out of the sky and spatters Chang's brains all over the floor of whatever right-wing organization he works for you can bet the farm that said debris will not be North Korea's. If you want to get paranoid about missile launches you should do so about those of countries that do them most often.
Posted in: A missile shot for Iran
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jeancolmar
Until further evidence is in, it is pointless to speculate.
Posted in: Man found dead on grounds of Defense Agency
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jeancolmar
I really do feel sympathy for this poor actor. But the headline made me laugh. If it didn't happen in Sweden I would say only in Japan would an actor get robbed while dressed as a pineapple. That it happened to a Japanese actor in Sweden adds to the absurdist twist of this story. I'm sorry; I shouldn't be laughing. This is not schadenfreude. I really regret that this happened.
Let this be a warning to Japanese tourists. When you go to Sweden do not dress up like pineapples. You'll be targeted. Better dress up as a lime.
Posted in: Japanese pop singer dressed as pineapple robbed in Sweden
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jeancolmar
"And who fed him that BS? Probably all of the above. Unfortunately, there are sick people who take the right-wing gun seriously in the US. The NRA especially has a lot to answer for this week as they are the prime lobbyists against gun control.
Posted in: Fight over urinating dog got police to Pittsburgh ambush
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jeancolmar
This really awful, a repeated nightmare. Guns again.
Posted in: Man shoots 5 children dead, then himself near Seattle
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jeancolmar
Europe should not have pledged any troops. Afghanistan is an American problem, not a European problems. The Americans started this senseless war under Bush let them finish it. Obama is generally a likable guy, except for his desire to escalate the Afghan war. If there is anything that will ruin his presidency this is it.
Posted in: Europe praises Obama, but pledges few Afghan troops
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jeancolmar
Three more innocent people have been shot to death thanks to the Second Amendment and the gun lobby. It has been a great week for the The Right to Bear Arms.
It is about the Americans got the idea that there is something wrong with a people who wants to own assault weapons. They are not hunting guns and they are not proper target guns. They are designed for only one thing: to kill lots of people at one time.
I believe the same can be said for most handguns. Their purpose is to kill people.
Let me repeat this: You have to assume a priori there is something psychologically wrong with people who buy assault weapons.
The murder these three innocent police officers is going to affect you even if you don't own a gun, never owned a gun, even hate the sight of guns. With the second mass murder of police officers within a month, cops are going to be jumpy. This means if you live in the US you now have a better chance of being an innocent police shooting victim than ever before. All you need to do is inadvertently seem like you have a gun to be blown away.
I sincerely hope that the U.S. gets rid off the Second Amendment or significantly changes it.
Yes, yes, yes: guns don't kill people. Maniacs who can easily get their hands on guns kill people. Lots of innocent people. If you live in the US you stand a better chance of being killed by a maniac than a terrorist or a North Korean missile.
Posted in: Gunman kills 3 Pittsburgh police officers responding to domestic disturbance call
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jeancolmar
Excuse me, there ought to be strict control of handguns too, making them either difficult or impossible to obtain. How many more of these horrors does the US need before something is done about the proliferation of arms in that country. Yes, I know about Japan and knives. Just imagine the situation if the maniacs also had access to guns as they do in the US.
Posted in: Gunman kills 13, then himself at New York immigrant help center
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jeancolmar
ABC has just called this horror a "signature American crime." And so it is. Indeed the unfortunate immigrants got a hands-on lesson in the Second Amendment. Fourteen people could be said to have been Second Amendmented to death.
Really and truly, the Second Amendment has got to be amended so that, at least, automatic military-style weapons are unavailable to the general populace. I suspect it won't until an armed madman goes into an NRA convention and blows away a few dozen people.
Posted in: Gunman kills 13, then himself at New York immigrant help center
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jeancolmar
Europe cannot help shoulder that immoral war either. It is time to get out. I do hope Obama get that through his head before he becomes another Lyndon Johnson.
Posted in: Obama: U.S. cannot shoulder Afghan burden alone
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jeancolmar
"Many in Japan are beginning to wonder if the tough talk was more political grandstanding than substance." At last, some people are getting tired of the LDP=induced hysteria. I would have used a more earthy expression than "grandstanding."
And it is a fact that everyone else tests rockets in the the general area of Japan without generating this fuss.
What is so funny is how the Japanese government backed off about shooting the rocket down when North Korea told them correctly that this would be an act of war. Now they are just planning to shoot down debris, a feat even Annie Oaklie wouldn't try. What the SDP ought to do instead is to stretch long nets all around Japan to catch the rocket's boosters if they fall down. Anyway, don't shoot at boosters; they charge when they are wounded.
The worst thing I can say about this launch is what I can say about all such launches. Their boosters cause environmental damage. But the LDP's hysteria generation over this launch is also a dangerous form of pollution. Those idiots nearly got Japan into a war or close to a war over this matter.
Posted in: Critics say Japan overreacting to N Korea rocket launch
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jeancolmar
This is truly monumental news after over seven years of this hideous war that has maimed and killed thousands. Afghanistan is still in the dark ages and will remain so until the people's will--not the US and Nato--force it to be otherwise.
Obama is making a big mistake in continuing Bush's war that has done no one any good.
Posted in: New Afghan law legalizes rape
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jeancolmar
I am amazed that a JR official actually asked a smoker to smoke in the designated area. Usually they look the other way. So three cheers for the conductor and three groans for the creepoid smoker, who should get the book thrown at him.
JR could solve the problem by banning smoking totally.
Posted in: Saitama train conductor assaulted after asking man to smoke in designated area
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jeancolmar
First and foremost, what did anyone expect given what the capitalist system has dumped on the world. So far, the protests have been relatively mild. A few broken windows are nothing compared to the broken lives that the banks and the speculators have created.
Keeping quite is the worse thing people can do at a time like this.
Posted in: Some 4,000 environmentalists and anti-capitalists are demonstrating against the G-20 summit in London. How do you feel about the protests?
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jeancolmar
This is truly disgusting and I have no sympathy for the kill, whether he was drunk or not.
What is disquieting is that this is yet another random killing. This was a major problem before the economy went belly up. I imagine that we can expect the situation to get worse in the current desperate climate. I find that more frightening than North Korea's missile launches.
Posted in: Man beats pedestrian to death in Kanagawa; says it didn't matter who
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jeancolmar
Welcome to Let's Hysteria With Me.
Do you know what is going to happen if North Korea successfully launches its rocket? Nothing. The only thing you have to worry about is if it goes wrong and rocket crud falls on your head. This is a common concern regarding all rocket launches around the world. According to Russian ecologist Mikhail Shishin, for instance, Siberia is badly polluted by boosters that fall into the pristine wilderness--and this is from successful launches. But beyond that there is nothing to worry about.
I worry more about the hysterical reaction to this launch from the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Americans. They have more military power than North Korea and they can do more damage.
North Korea is a badly run family business. It is poor and militarily comparatively weak. It is also fairly inoffensive, its rhetoric notwithstanding. Yes, there is the abduction issue. But that's over. They aren't doing it any more. And Kim Jong Il has admitted that his country did it--which is quite remarkable, when you think about it.
If you compare North Korea to a country like Israel you see both how weak and inoffensive it it. North Korea has nothing like Gaza to answer to.
I say let North Korea launch its vintage sputnik. The intelligent thing to do would be for foreign experts to volunteer their services to see that the launch went off successfully. That way we could be more sure that rocket crud won't fall on our heads. It would also defuse the current hysteria.
Posted in: Akita, Iwate prepare for North Korea rocket
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jeancolmar
Well suppose four people ate the monster. That would be--what--1200 calories per person. Not that good, but not that bad either. And if they didn't consume those awful soft drinks it wouldn't be too bad at all.
All that aside, I have ethical qualms about gimmick food, which is bound to be wasted, while there are starving people in this world. Excuse me if this sounds corny and bleeding-hearted. No, I don't think that not making an idiotically big hamburger is going to feed the millions. I see it as symbolic of a national that uses a disproportionate amount of the world's resources to maintain an extravagant and unhealthy national lifestyle that still generates and neglects poverty.
Anyway, I can see four people enjoying this thing. I cannot see one person really enjoying it.
Posted in: Warning sought for burger the size of one's head
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jeancolmar
You have to know that when the Japanese police form a unit and give it a little boys' name like "Sakura Unit" there is trouble ahead. I do not mean trouble for the father rapers and mother stabbers and those tender souls who toss kids off bridges or apartment balconies. I mean for a lot of unfortunate people who look bad but are not really bad. Photographers who happen to photograph a pretty girl or a cute kid--once innocent stuff--come immediately to mind. What worries me is that this unit, unable to find anything bad, will pick on the seemingly bad.
Most cases of physical abuse happen between family members or people who know each other. It is an area where the police have a history of not intervening when the targeted future victim appeals for police. Taking such people seriously should be routine police work which does not need a special Sakura Unit.
There are the chikans of course. Are there enough Sakura units members to ride every packed train car to see if there is a nasty hand reaching for a female behind? I doubt it.
Then there are the murderous pervs who follow women to their homes and do them in. There are also the gangsters who beat up women whom they have forced into prostitution. And don't forget the loan sharks who threaten men and women. These are serious problems for the police, but quite beyond the scope of some Sakura Unit.
One of the best things the police can do to curb violence against women and children--and men for that matter--is to take people threatened by violence seriously. This the one thing the Japanese police have not been good at. The Sakura Unit, more show than substance, is ironic proof of that.
Posted in: 'Sakura police' unit targets crimes of indecency against minors and women
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jeancolmar
This rotten war criminal should have been jailed for life with no chance of parole. Just imagine if an American civilian executed 4 American people. He'd get the death penalty.
When this scumbag gets out in 10 years I wonder if he will become a darling of the right-wing talk shows.
Posted in: U.S. sergeant jailed for murdering prisoners in Iraq
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jeancolmar
There is a disturbing question hanging over this. Is it possible that this serial arsonist did not just the death penalty because he set a gaijin's house on fire? Unfortunately, murderers of foreigners get off easily in this country. Granted that at least one victim, the wife, was Japanese (and the daughter would have at least had dual citizenship) but still they were the family members of a foreigner.
It is incredible that the scumbag who committed this crime will have the possibility of walking free in 15 years. That means he has a chance to burn down someone else's house. If he burns down a public official's house maybe the politicians will get the message.
Posted in: Motorcyclist campaigns to keep his family’s killer behind bars